Pages

Monday, 25 February 2013

A win for Team Suzuki's Wayne Maxwell at Phillip Island

Team Suzuki's Wayne Maxwell claimed his debut victory aboard the GSX-R1000 at Phillip Island's 'WSBK Cup' at the weekend; a non-championship event in the 2013 Australian Superbike Championship calendar.

Hosted alongside the opening round of the Superbike World Championship at Phillip Island, thirty year old Cranbourne resident Maxwell mastered the 4.445-kilometre circuit in his maiden outing with Team Suzuki Australia.

Maxwell topped Thursday's opening practice session and continued that form into Friday by capturing the first pole position of the year in the single thirty minute qualifying session with a flying 1:33.695 lap time.

Saturday saw Maxwell dominate the opening twelve lap race, leading from flag-to-flag with a comfortable 4.796-second victory. It was a confident performance, in which he set the quickest lap of the race at 1:33.535.

Maxwell said:

"To start from pole position and win the opening race is an ideal situation for all of us at Team Suzuki and I'm really happy about that. This weekend was great to collect valuable data and my first race on the bike was important for that, which set us up nicely for race two on Sunday."

Maxwell did well again on Sunday in the delayed second motorcycle race, leading all of the twelve laps and consistently lapping within the low 1:33 bracket. His best of the weekend came with a 1:33.073 on lap eight as he charged out front, eventually winning by 7.198 seconds.

Maxwell said:"Working with Team Manager Phil Tainton has been exceptional since I joined Suzuki; he's great at making a connection with the riders, as is the whole team. It's been fantastic in that sense, I can tell him what I am feeling on the bike and he understands me clearly to help us make real progress in these early stages of the year."

"This weekend was a nice way to race the Suzuki GSX-R1000 for the first time without the pressure of championship points on the line, just starting off with another few days to get comfortable and work closely with the team in race conditions. We used two bikes in each practice session and two in the qualifying session, exploring the settings of the bikes throughout. To reach the best setting in the final race just shows the strength of the Team Suzuki crew as we work together, plus Dunlop was able to supply great tyres for a consistent effort in both races. I really have to thank everybody involved in this result."

Team Suzuki Manager Phil Tainton was pleased with Maxwell's first official race aboard the GSX-R1000, using the weekend as a test bed as the team prepares to defend the national championship that they won with Josh Waters last year. Tainton said:

"It was a really good weekend for Wayne and the team. We're certainly working around set-up to get him comfortable on the GSX-R and also to adapt to the new track surface at Phillip Island. In the last race we made some more changes and Wayne said we're getting close to the money, so by the end of the weekend I believe we accomplished our goals.

"It has been great working with Wayne; he's quite strong-minded, knows what he wants and comes with a lot of experience. He's very decisive and positive with his feedback and what he wants out of the bike, which I'm really happy with because it makes us all dig that much deeper as well. We're all getting along extremely well and this result is a perfect beginning to 2013."

The Australian Superbike Championship will officially commence at Symmons Plains in Tasmania on April 5-7th.

About Wemoto

Welcome to the most comprehensive selection of motorcycle parts on the Internet from a UK store.
In addition to our impressive portfolio of products we feel our customer services are second to none in the motorcycle industry, we have carefully assembled a 30 strong team of the best, most knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff we can find, all of whom are eager to make sure we supply the best value service, with the minimum of fuss in the quickest possible time, always striving to pull out all the stops so that your beloved machine is off the road for as little time as possible.